The five most significant airline stories of 2008

— -- Another year has, ahem, flown by.

In reviewing the past year in the travel world, the challenge isn't so much finding stories that deserve a moment's recollection and reflection. Rather, it's culling a few representative events or developments from the torrent of news bits and bites we've been inundated with over the past 12 months.

Following are five items from my files that strike me as particularly indicative of the year itself, or especially suggestive of what might lie ahead.

1. Southwest abandoned its roots

Southwest was in the spotlight for much of this year, applauded as the company with the prescience to buy jet fuel at pre-negotiated prices, leaving it with low fuel costs when the price of a barrel of crude soared to $147 over the summer. As most airlines struggled to keep their unhedged fuel costs from dragging them into bankruptcy, Southwest flew above the financial turbulence. (When fuel prices plunged, the hedging had the opposite effect, pushing Southwest into its first quarterly loss in 17 years.)

More significant, both for the traveling public and for the industry, has been Southwest's move to extend beyond its traditional base of leisure travelers. The lure of the business-traveler market—small but highly profitable—finally proved irresistible.

But with mainline carriers offering business travelers upgrades to first class, access to airport lounges, and heaps of bonus miles, Southwest's longstanding focus on low prices and cheerfully bare-bones service wasn't winning over road warriors. Southwest had neither first-class seats nor airport lounges to attract pampered fliers accustomed to such perks.

The discounter's solution was to add an elite tier (A-List) to its Rapid Rewards program, and reward elite fliers with expedited security clearance and priority boarding.

Security clearance and flight boarding are both zero-sum games: Giving precedence to one customer necessarily means delaying someone else. And that flies in the face of Southwest's egalitarian, one-size-fits-all approach.

Southwest isn't alone in trying to be all things to all people, or an acceptable number of things to an adequate number of people. But Southwest's case merits special attention because its identity is more firmly established than other carriers. And because of Southwest's remarkable success in generating customer loyalty and profits, its example will be watched by all, and followed by at least a few. For better or for worse.